Review of House of the Dead (2003) by Ted W — 03 Feb 2017

Most movies based off videogames are not good. In fact they're pretty much downright garbage. Which brings us to "House of the Dead" a 2003 Uwe Boll film adaptation of the popular arcade rail shooter. Some might have 2 questions.

1. who's Uwe Boll? 2. What's a rail shooter?

Uwe Boll is a director synonymous with straight to DVD B movie horror/action ; with the "Rampage" trilogy, "In the Name of the King 3", and "Bloodrayne" 2 and 3. I don't know if "House of the Dead" got a theater release ,but if so I'm sure it was short lived.

As for rail shooters. They're your typical arcade shooting games house of the dead, area 51, metal slug. They're games were you're rout is predetermined, most of them move the character for you,you just aim and shoot. There's little dialogue and the plot is simplistic and usually explained in 2 or 3 brief cutscenes. They're still awesome games, but how do you expand on that to make a 90 minute movie? Well after watching "House of the Dead" I can tell you this movie is clearly not the answer.

Our main characters consist of two douchey college guys, three hot girls( tough black girl,dumb blonde, and smart brunette), a kermudgenly German boat captain smuggling weapons, a coast guard badass chick, and Clint Howard as the first mate. That's a bad sign when you have a main party of seven actors nobody knows and Clint Howard is the most famous person in this film.

Our group is on their way to the rave of the year which is being held on Isle de Muerte. Despite missing the ferry to the island and the German captains warning, they pay him to take them anyway. They show up to the island of death and find the rave completely deserted and wrecked( they even find a shirt covered in blood); but think nothing of it and pour themselves some beers and try to hookup.

Zombies inevitably show up and our troop of morons start running through the woods. The blonde girl gets zombified, and her stupid boyfriend then gets eaten. They run into another group of survivors who were at the rave earlier; including my favorite character ,Liberty(an Asian raver girl in a united States flag jumpsuit who kills zombies with knives and roundhouse kicks).

Kirk the German captain shows up to reveal he was smuggling weapons and all hell breaks loose as we get a bad zombie shoot em up; with shitty editing, and horrible techno music throughout. It's so generic that they keep splicing in footage from the "House of the Dead" videogame;like they have to keep reminding you that the movie is based on the game.

There's a Ludacris shoot out scene with a really bad P.O.D sounding song that goes on way too long. Characters and zombies start dieing left and right. There's still not much revealed about the plot. In fact we're not introduced to the villian until an hour and fifteen minutes into a hot and a half movie.

The villian is an evil scientist who's been doing experiments for centuries and has made an immortality serum( Original :/ ). He's doing some weird stuff to make a perfect being,not really sure; even the short exposition is vague. He bites the dust in a death so ridiculous I won't ruin it if you decide to watch this movie. The movie ends in a cliffhanger thinking there will be a sequel, and guess what? They made "House of the Dead 2".

So as far as bad videogame movies go House of the Dead is upper echelon trash. Is it worth a watch? With enough of your friends to rip on it, it's definitely worth a view. It's by no means good, but it's so stupid and poorly done it's funny.

2/5.